What's cool about that last article: Republican state legislatures are considering elimination of state income taxes while Democratic state legislatures are thinking about raising state income taxes. Now, if they combine these measures with opposites shifts in sales taxes they'll help reshuffle the American population in ways guaranteed to give people just what they deserve. The hard part: convincing the Republicans to raise minimum wage levels at the state level. That would really drive the lower classes into the caring arms of just the sorts of politicians who want them.

A really brave right-wing state would give all released felons a free ticket on an airplane or bus to a left-wing state.

Here is what else the Republican states should do: Automate education in order to free up college professors to move to states dominated by Democrats. The Republican legislatures could use a sales tax to fund their state universities to create very cheap online courses. The Republican states could share college course lectures and online testing software. Free those professors from the need to live under Republican rule. Great for everybody.

"Here is what else the Republican states should do: Automate education in order to free up college professors to move to states dominated by Democrats."

On the other side of the ledger, should they subsidize industries likely to bring well-educated Republicans? And what industries would they be? I'm thinking engineering of every kind except software...doctors and real estate developers really have to be where the clientele are, so that doesn't wash. What else?

What do you think of the idea of having income tax relative to the number of people you employ? So if you own a business and employ lots of people, you pay less tax. But if you're, say, a movie star, and make millions of dollars, but employ very few people you get a tax raise, to like %80. We need a way to kill Hollywood along with academia and the MSM.

Keeping out the lower class? Dude, today's *lower class* doesn't even work, so unemployment benefits mean diddly to them. This is probably a good financial policy but as a way of keeping the riff-raff out it's useless.

I've been trying to figure out how to get all the boomer matrons, who moved back to Iowa, after having been used up in LA and NYC so they could escape the consequences of their quasi religious indoctrination and continue in their devotion by preaching to the decimated next generation of Iowa's youth, to go back to LA or NYC.

Surely there must be a program the Obama administration can finance for these unfortunate creatures.

The out-migration from California appears to be mostly a poor and lower-middle class phenomenon:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/trulia/2013/02/12/jobs-arent-leaving-california-for-texas-but-people-are/
Republican states, like Kansas, might adopt a much more regressive tax code but it might still be a good deal for lower class blue-staters to move to Kansas or Texas if the cost of living is so much less.

Engineering: The way to create a big concentration would be to shrink humanities departments and then make in-state remote education for constructive subjects like engineering easy to do. So you take a state university in the plains states, shut down urban planning, all "studies" departments, and the like. Then make big online in-state programs to do training in engineering, contract law, math, accounting and business. Make these available to high school students for free. Channel them in constructive directions.

Here's the cool part: If state governments cut out the departments that Democrats like to major in then those students will leave the state to go do an ethnic aggrievement studies major or an urban social engineering studies major somewhere else. Get rid of those Masters in Social Work programs. High school guidance counselors can be given names of NY and Massachusetts universities that offer these degrees.

Florida governor Rick Scott wants to charge higher tuition for liberal arts majors. Great idea. But some departments (e.g. social work, education, and cultural anthropology) should just be shut down. They've been overrun by zombies.

bbartlog,

Some people work long enough to qualify for unemployment. But point taken. What could be done: make welfare benefits hard to get. At the same time offer outplacement services for the perpetually to help find jobs in distant states. Give them tickets to get to the new job with, say, a month paid in a residential hotel in that other state. Bye bye.

"In fact, the President of the North Carolina Senate is considering the elimination of their state income tax."

Dumb, dumb, dumb. Where will they make up the difference, by increasing the sales tax? Sales taxes kill local retail sales. Several times recently I have opted to make major purchases online in order to avoid paying sales tax. I saved $50 in sales tax by buying my cell phone online rather than at a local retail provider. I would have been fine paying $25 more (the difference between online and store price), but I wasn't going to fork over another $50 on top of that.

My state has a 3% tax on food and 6.85% on non-food. Instead, states should raise their food taxes, since online is not a big competitor for food sales, but cut taxes for items people are likely to buy online, like consumer electronics.

The reduction in local retail sales is a feature, not a problem. Fewer goods and services bought locally means less demand for a local low skilled work force. So high sales taxes are good and should replace income taxes.

What would be ideal: Higher sales tax on local goods and services that require low skills to deliver and no sales tax on goods and services that require high skill. So do not tax doctor and dental visits. Put a moderate tax on car repair. But a high tax on nail polishing services and gardening services.